


fred andrews adopts a gang

by jugheadjones



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Class Difference, Homelessness, Southside Serpents Gang - Freeform, abuse mention, andrews construction, fred doesn't want a golf course he wants a giant childrens home and a better social work budget, post when a stranger calls, rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-01-31 22:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12691095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: ‘sweet pea, huh?’ he’d said, unspoken:that’s a hell of a name,and the tall, frosty-eyed youth (god, wasn’t he tall) had lifted his chin in a way that was a little too FP for comfort and said ‘yeah, you got a problem with it?’fred had liked him immediately.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohmygodwhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/gifts).



> claire and i continue to reject canon and play god with the pitiful morsels we are force-fed every wednesday.
> 
> julian and ricky belong to claire and her spectacular fanfics, i'm just babysitting her kids for a bit. 
> 
> claire i love you and sweet pea both 
> 
> tw for mention of rape and abuse

fred wants to give them all something. he wants to give them all a lot of things, but sometimes the vision is specific and sharp. he wants to give toni a library. the whole goddamn library of alexandria, if she’d take it - rooms and books and rooms and books and windows and movies and music. he wants for sweet pea a baseball bat and a shimmering green field under an open sky, and someone who’ll pitch underhand to him for hours in the fresh air. he thinks sweet pea would be a hell of a slugger.

then there’s julian, who reminds him a lot more of jughead than fp, whatever the serpent on his back dictates, and for whom fred wants only and exhaustingly for him to be warm, for him to sleep. there is a tiredness in julian that runs from him in waves and fred wants whenever he sees him to bundle it away. fred wants to give him a bed and a blanket in another life, in another world. somewhere far away and safe. 

julian took the ap courses all throughout high school, sitting among kids who came from houses with yards and fences instead of trailer parks, kids who - if not clad in the northside’s preppy pressed slacks and sweater vests - at least never wore the leather on their back that he did. julian tells him once that sometimes it feels like that jacket weighs a thousand pounds. not always. but sometimes. like it’ll crush all the breath out of you if you relax.

he didn’t quit. not when his college-bound classmates shot suspicious glances at him and his friends heckled him for trying and the teachers told him he didn’t have the stuff. not when his job got busy and the money got tight and he had to switch to night classes so he could work extra hours. never once during the long nights he spent in tears over books of numbers and swaths of text that just didn’t make sense to him. never once in the months of catch up he played for the missing years of his junior high education, when he’d had to drop out to start working. he walked out of that classroom with a spot at the dead bottom of the honour roll and a scholarship to the community college. nothing much to anyone else, but the jacket weighed less than nothing to him that day. he could have flown out of that school.  

only there was no money for college that year, and his mother cried over it, and his little brother growled that julian was doing nothing but making her upset, and that he should stop. that was the year julian’s father sent him to the ER for the unspeakable crime of thinking he was better than his upbringing, four stitches in his scalp and two more over his eyebrow. nothing new or exciting. serpents have deadly aim and a lot of empty bottles lying around.

no money the next year either, and then julian worked his ass off enough that there was, and enrolled in a class. his dad was gone by then, which suited julian fine. it was his mom and her boys against the world. in a way it had always been. a year later he’s taking two classes, and he’s thinking about the day he gets out from under the shadow of the trailer park and the leather on his back. not because he doesn’t care about the gang - family is family - but because it does weigh an awful lot sometimes, and because maybe if he works really hard someday he’ll be somewhere that a snake tattoo doesn’t mean shit.

he had balanced it in high school and he balances it now. the gang. the job. school. family. balanced on the hair-thin line of a knife blade, but balanced all the same. julian doesn’t touch the drugs they deal. he studies, and he works, and he gets milkshakes from pop’s, ten percent off, because pop used to be one of them too. julian has old eyes and a tired soul and a winter coat that’s too thin for the season. his little brother has a brand new one and mittens that go with it.

yeah, thinks fred. julian’s tired.

fred knows the coat equation like the back of his hand - it’s why he’d sewn up the jacket he got shot in so he’d save the extra eighty to send archie to the weekend football intensive. but fred was a hell of a lot older than julian, and julian hadn’t chosen to have someone dependent on him.

julian’s mom is sick. meaning he might as well not have bothered with ninth grade ap math, because his old college try has hit a brick wall. hospital bills don’t come cheap. fred would know: just hearing those two words makes him feel cold. fred’s up and walking now, albeit with help. julian’s mom might never be. their family’s life savings are being drained without any promise of full recovery. in another few months, julian doesn’t know how they’ll pay the bills.

he’s only twenty-one. his brother is younger. and it might not be them and their mom against the world for much longer.

jughead tells him this as they’re making grilled cheese for lunch, about his friend who’s mom is sick - really sick -  and how the serpents are trying to make money to cover the hospital bills. fred has a devastating flash of them all - a bunch of huddled up kids with the knees torn out of their jeans and too many zippers on their coats, counting out sticky bills on a cafeteria table. scraping and scraping and never having enough. trying to cover the same bills that are piling up on fred’s counter, asking in loud red letters for money he doesn’t have. playing miniature adults and hating the game.

jughead talks about julian, how shattered he looks lately, like the world is slipping in glass shards out of his palms. how young the fear makes him, how heavy, and how the scar in his eyebrow never really went away. how hard he studies, or used to, how he set his gummy second-hand textbooks away every night with the reverence of a treasure-hunter in a tomb. julian’s mom used to let gladys borrow sugar when they ran out, he says. sometimes she’d make him a snack after school in the trailer park. “i don’t know what to do,” says jughead. “i don’t know if there’s anything i can do.”

fred is very quiet when he’s done. he asks jughead if his friend julian might want to come for dinner some day.

“maybe,” says jughead, and then, truthful: “no, I think he would.”

that’s how fred meets julian - proud and mature and somewhere on the verge of collapse. archie gives him weird looks at the table until fred fixes his eyes on his son and says “archie, you’re excused.” archie thumps upstairs as jughead clears dishes, and fred waits until he can hear the plaintive twang of his guitar before he relaxes.

tighten, relax. that’s all he can manage lately.

‘let me help,’ says julian, and tries to wash a casserole dish out at the sink, looking like he’s going to fall asleep on his feet standing there.

fred asks if he wants to spend the night.

* * *

money, is what it comes down to, really, what he wants to give each of them. if he had the money to spare sweet pea would have his ball field and toni would have her access to education and julian would have the bills paid and a warm place to sleep and classes to take. but if fred had the money to spare there wouldn’t be a kid in the world who didn’t have their lunches paid for. he doesn’t, is the point. no one does. if julian’s mom had the money she’d do the same thing with it. he’s not special for wanting.

money is a foreign concept to fred, lately. his earnings have dwindled in the past three years from two incomes to one, and then to nothing. no, _nothing_ was a generous concept. fred has less than than. he’d prefer nothing - what he has is d-e-b-t, debt -  a fact of business life he had once thought he was comfortable with. andrews construction had just climbed out of the red by the time fp started doing deals with the serpents, sinking them briefly right back in. fred had dealt with that. personal debt is harder. he had not planned for this.

hermione and hiram - his stomach still tightens up even hearing hiram’s name, too, but that’s no one’s problem but his own - have stepped in to manage the company’s accounts. this takes the initial weight off his shoulders and swaps it out for a new one, just as heavy.

“i think i’m losing my company” he says to sweet pea once.

“fuck em,” says sweet pea. “don’t let em take what’s yours.”

fred meets sweet pea because jughead needs some school supplies that he’d left up in archie’s bedroom, introducing them in a hurry before sprinting up the stairs.

“sweet pea, huh?” fred had said, unspoken: _that’s a hell of a name_ , and the tall, frosty-eyed youth (god, wasn’t he tall) had lifted his chin in a way that was a little too FP for comfort and said “yeah, you got a problem with it?”

fred had liked him immediately.

sweet pea is cool. he narrows his eyes at fred in a way that says he doesn’t trust him, but he’ll tolerate him for now. fred asks how school’s going, and sweet pea scoffs in a way that implies he’d spit on the rug at the very mention of it if he could. but then the demeanour slackens just a bit, and he says it’s going okay. they’re working on a history project.

“what’s your project about?” asks fred, taking in the week-old bruise over sweet pea’s eye. it reminds him of archie a little too much, reminds him of a sixteen year old fp even more. sweet pea has a busted lip and a knobbly, healing scab under his left ear, fred resists the urge to ask him how the other guy came out.

“oppression.” says sweet pea roughly. “like how you northsiders treat us like dirt just cause of where we’re from.”

fred blinks, not sure how he’s supposed to respond. sweet pea gets closer to him, as if in challenge, so that he’s breathing almost down fred’s neck.

fred tries conscientiously not to laugh at him. fred is afraid of a lot of things, lately, but sixteen year olds aren’t one of them. the only sixteen year old who has the privilege of striking fear into his heart has carrot-coloured hair and is out at football practice.  “can i see it when you’re done?” fred asks.

sweet pea snorts. “if you want.”

he steps closer again, trying to get fred to step back. fred plays alpha dog, straightening up despite the height difference and meeting sweet pea’s gaze. he does what he tells archie to do on the wrestling mat and focuses his energy into calmness, lets it settle in his chest and shoulders. makes himself the eye of the cyclone.

sweet pea steps down.

sweet pea mutters something as he turns around, something that sounds to fred’s ears like it has the word _fp_ in it. his heart gives a little, uncertain leap and he opens his mouth to ask, but just then jughead comes back down with a loaded backpack and stuffs some papers into sweet pea’s hands.

“we have to go,” says jughead apologetically, and turns to fred. “thanks, fred.”

the use of his first name jars him. he’d been waiting for Jughead to call him mr. a, the way he always has since he was young.

“fred,” says sweet pea, like he’s testing out the name, like he’s still hoping it will come across threatening, even though he’s backed down considerably now, is hovering harmlessly by the door with his shoulders a little rounded forward.

“my pleasure,” says fred. “come back soon.”

sweet pea punches one hand absently into the other like slapping a baseball into a glove, and fred gets the first tickle of that baseball diamond he wants to build him. there’s energy vibrating in sweet pea that needs out. sweet pea purses his lips and sneers at fred, at the room, at everything.

the fact of that sneer is so quintessentially fp that it almost makes fred’s heart stop.

* * *

one day archie invites jughead for dinner and jughead comes home with a fresh-faced, soft-eyed, serpent boy by the name of fangs fogarty. on this first meeting, fangs prudently doesn’t mention his friendship with sweet pea, so that archie is wary but not furious at his presence. when fangs starts swallowing his meal as if he hasn’t eaten in months, archie is even less defensive, his eyes taking on a sad, hollow kind of understanding as he locks gazes with fred across the table.

fangs eats like he’ll never have another chance, looks around at the very ordinary meal fred lays out for him - milquetoast by even their relatively bland standards: chicken, mashed potatoes, bread, and peas - like it’s the greatest feast he’s ever seen. he eats ravenously for a few minutes and then will slow down as if embarrassed about it. he saves his bread for last, pulls it apart, and then eats it in small pieces, like he’s saving it.

“do you want seconds?” archie asks before fred even can, as fangs is still picking apart the crust. fangs looks up at them, uncertainty flaring briefly in his eyes before ebbing back to coolness.

“we have lots left,” says fred reassuringly, and fangs nods. archie offers him the last piece of bread, even though fred had baked it fresh that morning and knows archie would have snapped it up in a heartbeat. archie loves fresh bread. fangs curls one of his hands around it, swollen knuckles purple against the white, and fred feels an errant pang of guilt for the distress he’d woken up with this morning about how many christmas presents he’d be able to afford with the holidays creeping closer. fred is worrying about archie getting a toboggan instead of a fishing pole. fangs might not know when he’ll eat next, if ever.

a library for toni. a sports field for sweet pea. a bed for julian. a stocked pantry and lunch money for fangs for the rest of his life.

those are the things he’d give them if he could.

* * *

it’s not much better on the northside, is the thing. he finds betty crying one day on her front step, sobbing messily into her hands, clad only in a light windbreaker despite the chill. fred crosses the lawn and sits next to her.

“betty,” he asks quietly. “what’s going on?”

she jerks away from him like she’s afraid, but then he sees her spine relax and she edges closer to him again. betty had grown up calling him _dad_ offhand, because she and archie were in and out of each other's houses so frequently that they may as well have shared blood. she leans on him now like a daughter, buries her face in her hands, her hands in his chest, and cries messily into his hug. fred wraps his arms around her and tries to hold her as best he can.

“I can’t tell you,” she sobs, “i’m sorry. i would if i could, but i just can’t.”

“it’s okay,” says fred softly, imagining she must have made someone a promise - betty kept promises to a fault. fred smooths his hand through the hair come loose from her ponytail. “you don’t have to.”

she sits up then, abruptly, wiping tears and makeup messily off her cheeks. “it’s really nothing,” she apologizes, voice wet. “i’m sorry, it’s nothing. i’m being silly.”

“you’re not,” says fred, though in absence of any information can’t argue decisively one way or another. he offers her a kleenex from his pocket and she swipes gratefully at her eyes. fred goes for the most general advice he can give, squeezing one of her cold hands.

“betty, bad things end,” he says softly, not sure how well he believes his own advice. thinking about julian, waiting for the end, selling his used textbooks to feed his brother. “one way or another. i promise.”

she smiles sweetly at him, cheeks damp, eyes puffy. “thanks, mr. a. i know.”

the thing is, fred isn’t sure about it himself. not in this town. not anymore. north or south.

moose is still in a hospital bed, and fred can’t ask archie to drive him down there all the time just to visit. fred misses him. is frightened for him.

moose is in pain all the time, and no matter how many old football stories fred tells him or how tight he grips moose’s forearm on the covers, he doesn’t stop hurting. jerry doesn’t make much more than fred did, before everything, and fred is starting to abhor the deadly ring of those two evil words, _hospital bills_. the whole town seems to be choking on them. jerry is making do. the school is trying to help. but they’re all stretched so thin already that any attempt at reconciliation is going nowhere.

in between it all he has to put on a suit that doesn’t fit him anymore and stand at a gala that cost more than his kitchen and pretend like his stomach doesn’t roll whenever hiram gets near enough to touch him. he doesn’t try to touch  - fred wouldn’t let him - but fred doesn’t like the way hiram’s eyes seem to find humour in it all. _our children are dying_ , fred wants to tell him. _we’re letting our children down and you just want to bulldoze their houses and build a fucking golf course. no one around here even knows how to golf!_

but he doesn’t have the guts to say it. he’s too grateful that he hasn’t had to be alone with hiram since they became business partners. fred lives in secret terror of the day hiram approaches him one on one and he couldn’t verbalize why, only knows that he dreads it deep in his stomach and panics whenever it seems to get close. he steps out for some fresh air before the performance, debates going home. wants nothing more than to shower and wash this day off him.

so he’s almost grateful when the gang of them tromp downstairs back into the gala, betty among them now, at least until he sees cheryl at the end of the pack. she’s swathed in a yellow yarn blanket, wearing it as a cloak, makeup running in streaks down her face. they go straight to him, maybe recognizing him as the only half-reasonable adult in this godforsaken town. the murmur of voices in the other room drifts out to them like the swell of water on a shore.

“something bad happened to cheryl,” is the first thing archie says.

the sick feeling in fred’s stomach gets heavier and worse. archie sucks in breath like he’s about to run a sprint.

“nick tried to rape her,” he says.

fred looks at them all: all their upturned eyes and petrified expressions, the set, shaking clutch of veronica’s jaw, the total, swollen misery in josie’s eyes. “oh, cheryl-” whispers fred, his heart in his mouth, and steps closer to her.

cheryl jerks back into josie’s arms and fred stops cold. there’s a sour, self-loathing taste filling the back of his mouth. no, cheryl didn’t want men trying to hold her now. cheryl lifts her chin slightly, acknowledges him with a rapid blink. her face is full of pain. everyone’s is.

fred’s been first aid certified a few dozen times over, and the first rule is that you take care of yourself first. you can’t administer help if you’ve passed out. he clenches his hands into fists until the nails bite, takes a couple deep breaths, shoves some of the dark stuff in his head into a box and seals it.

“it’s going to be okay,” he says to all of them, and realizes he may have told this group of kids a bald faced lie.

* * *

 

there’s no more paranoia from archie, thank god, no more red circle - but it doesn’t mean his son isn’t afraid. fred watches archie eat breakfast in the mornings and feels a hollow, aching, misery spread from the middle of his torso out into his arms. the thing is: archie would be safer in chicago. fred can’t protect him any more than he can protect the rest of these kids: cheryl, julian, fangs, betty. he can feed them dinner and he can let them sleep at his place, and that’s about it. and he has the numbers laid out: in a couple months, his grocery budget is going to halve. then quarter.

julian comes by again, and fred looks long at him - twenty and juggling things too heavy to drop - and sends him home with three bags of groceries. julian says no, and then no again, and then yes, because julian’s little brother is at home and hungry. their mother is getting worse. everything is getting worse.

julian leaves and fred phones his mom for the first time since he got shot. tells her he loves her.

fred stands in the kitchen doorway and twists the cord of the phone around and around his finger. decides that just because he can’t fix everything, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t try to do what he can.

fred says: “mom, what would you think if i adopted a neighbourhood gang?”

he can hear his mother smile through the phone line. “i’d think,” she says, “that they were pretty lucky.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a late birthday present for claire after the most recent episode. i love you so.

At 3:00 pm Elm Street is still sunny, the grey clouds of January held momentarily at bay despite the chill in the air. Fred is heading out the door to take Vegas for a walk when he collides with a purple-haired teenager with a backpack, loitering on his front porch. Vegas lets out a bark and then begins to thump his tail in recognition. 

“Toni,” Fred says, recognizing her. He quickly stows the mittens he had been carrying in the pocket of his coat. “What can I do for you?” 

Toni smiles anxiously, looking down at Vegas with faint affection. “I need your help,” she says hurriedly. “And I think you’re the only one who  _ can _ help because I don’t think FP can at this point.” 

“FP?” Fred repeats dimly, confused, tugging on Vegas’ leash to stop him when he tries to bound down the steps toward the road. A concern is growing in his chest. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

Toni shakes her head so that her violet curls bounce. “Jughead’s totally wigging out. And none of us can talk any sense to him. So I thought maybe you could.” 

“Wigging out how? Is he okay?” 

Toni nods. “He’s fine. It’s just the school thing. He’s getting really intense about it.”

Vegas is straining on his leash again, and Fred pulls him back, frowning. “Can you walk with me?” 

“Yeah, sure. Can I hold him?” 

“Okay.” Fred disentangles himself from the leash and hands it over to her. “Be careful. He tugs.”

Toni obediently grips the leash, following Fred down to the road. They turn together on Elm Street and begin the walk toward the park, Toni keeping a firm hand on the straining Vegas. Fred zips up his jacket and stows his hands in the pockets. 

“So, what’s going on?” 

Toni sighs. “Basically, Weatherbee banned all gang symbols from school, at the risk of suspension. Meaning, keep your tattoos covered, no rings, whatever, and no jackets.” 

“Well, I hate to say it, but it doesn’t sound unreasonable.” Fred waves at a few neighbours that are doing yard work on their front lawn. “Gang paraphernalia was banned from the dress code when I was there too, it’s not just for your sake.” 

“Right.” Toni shrugs. “Well, Jughead refused. He won’t take his jacket off. So Weatherbee gives him an ultimatum. Take it off, or you’re suspended. Jughead just turned around and walked right out of school.” 

Fred’s stomach turns anxiously. He stops in the middle of the road. “Jughead got suspended?” 

“Jughead more or less suspended himself.” Toni sighs, swinging her backpack off to one shoulder. “I kept telling him it didn’t matter about the jackets, but he thinks they’re profiling us. Like, attacking us because of where we’re from.” She shakes her head. “At least that’s what he says.”

“I guess Jughead liked having a place where he fit in,” says Fred carefully. “I know he liked Southside High a lot. He feels like that’s being taken away.”

“Well, why can’t he fit in here? We’re all still here. We’re all the same people.” They’ve reached the wide field of the dog park, and Toni swings her backpack off to set it down on the grass. Fred unclips Vegas’ leash. 

“You’re right about that. This happened today?” 

“Yeah. I came straight here after school because I didn’t know what else to do. FP’s not exactly up to dad duty right now.” Toni heaves a sigh. “I just want to keep my head down and do well at this school. I don’t care about fitting in or anything, but I want to be a normal high schooler. With scholarships, and extracurriculars, and _ textbooks _ , and no metal detectors. After all this, they’re just going to start installing them here, soon enough.” 

“I don’t think so.” Fred frowns. He digs a tennis ball out of his pocket and tosses it to Vegas, who’s hovering eagerly by his feet. “I’ll talk to Jughead if he’ll let me. That’s not smart.” 

Vegas sprints after the ball, becoming a gold blur in the dying grass. When he reaches the yellow sphere he scoops it up into his mouth and comes soaring back, paws thumping, collar jangling. “That’s what I told him,” says Toni, watching the dog’s exuberance as he drops the ball again at Fred’s feet, his tail wagging wildly. “And he  _ is _ smart. He’s throwing away his future. Over a stupid jacket. Just to prove a point that’s not even worth proving.”

Fred tosses the ball again, a neat, sporty pitch. “It’s a bad idea, all right. But like you said, he’s smart. I’m sure he’ll realize that. This is an adjustment period, it’s hard for everyone. Speaking of-” Vegas carries the ball back to them, and Fred offers it to Toni. “How’s Archie treating you guys?” 

“Fine, for once.” She tosses the ball and watches the dog sprint after it. “He’s on the welcoming committee.” 

“All the kids are being nice to you, then?” He knows as he says it that it’s too much to hope for, but he watches her expression hopefully anyways.

Toni grins, only it’s more a grimace. “Most of them. And the ones who aren’t so thrilled are just going to have to get used to it.”

There’s tension in her voice, and Fred decides to change the topic. “So, extracurriculars,” he says, faking a throw so that Vegas turns excitedly around in a circle, snapping at his tail. He throws it for real, tossing it underhand into the middle of the field. “What do you think you’ll go out for? Cheerleading? Basketball? Photography club?” 

“Cheerleading? Come on.” Toni gives him a look. Vegas comes running back, drool hanging out of his mouth around the ball. “I’m not the type. As for basketball, I’ve never even learned how to play.” 

“No kidding.” Fred coaxes the ball out of Vegas’ mouth, wipes the drool off on his coat, and hands it to Toni. She sends it soaring back across the field in an arc. “Do you want to learn?” 

A small grin flickers onto Toni’s face. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, I’ve got a hoop above the garage.” 

Toni wants to decline. Two days ago, when she was still walking through metal detectors to get to class, she probably would have. Toni knew the basics of the sport, but she’d never once thought of playing. Nor did she have any desire to. Toni was not a jock, and at Southside High, Toni had had all the school spirit of a dead slug. Jocks were Toni’s enemies - people like Archie who wore big jackets and held themselves up and pushed you around. 

Now, though? Standing at the crossroads of an old life and a new one, when she had sworn so adamantly to herself that she’d make this time count? Breaking out of the routine she had begun to despise was incredibly alluring. 

She hears her own voice answer before she’s even truly aware she’s speaking. “Why not?” Toni hears herself say, throwing the ball for Vegas one more time. It speeds across the blue of the sky, and Toni sees for the first time with the odd clairvoyance of Fred’s adulthood - the relative insignificance of the Jughead problem, the hopefulness of her own transition. “If you can get Jughead back to school, I can meet you tomorrow by your garage.” 

* * *

Jughead slouches into Riverdale High the next day in his own clothes, so Toni goes back to Fred’s house. “Getting in the school spirit?” he asks when she arrives, raising an eyebrow at Toni’s uniform shirt. 

Toni snorts. “Weatherbee said he knew we didn’t all have the financial means to afford school appropriate clothes.” 

“Go easy on him,” Fred cautions. “His heart’s in the right place.” 

Toni just shrugs. Fred would know. 

As the afternoon wears on, Fred teaches her patiently to shoot, rebound, and defend the hoop without drawing a foul. They spend the most time on foul shots, which Toni finds the hardest. Fred, however, is almost obnoxiously patient. 

“That’s perfect,” he insists, guiding Toni’s elbow into place for the fourth time in a row. “Then it’s all in the wrist. Just power up, and follow through.” 

The basketball thumps off the center of the backboard, hits the edge of the rim and bounces out. Toni deflates. “Oh.” 

“Don’t worry. Happens to all of us.” Fred chases the ball down and passes it back to her. “Just bend your knees a bit more. That’s it.” He crouches beside her, miming the action. “Extend your arm, and-” 

Toni throws, and the basketball hits the backboard and drops into the hoop. Fred beams as if the shot had been his. 

“Nice,” he says. “You’re a natural.” 

“I keep missing.” 

“Everyone misses their foul shots sometimes. That you can practice. I saw you stealing those rebounds earlier. You’re quick and you’re accurate under pressure, which is a lot harder to learn.” 

Toni kind of thinks he’s bullshitting her, but decides not to call him out on it. She throws up a few more, and then Fred has her step back to an imaginary three-point line to test out her distance. Her first three-point shot smacks off the garage door and leaves a mark. The second smashes hard into the very top of the backboard, zooms across the street, and sets off someone’s car alarm when it taps their tire. 

Laughing, Fred runs after it. There’s something Toni wants to ask him,  _ now _ , because she’s never had a better time, but it’s hard. She’s trying to do everything right lately. Which is hard when you have no experience with it. But this could go wrong. 

“You know,” she says offhandedly, as Fred returns and passes her the ball. “I’ve always been really curious about what it’s like to die.”

Fred says nothing and she steps back to the chalk-drawn foul line and takes another shot. He steps in front of her to catch the rebound. 

“I can’t help you there. I didn’t die. My heart never stopped beating.” Fred shoots and makes it. “And I was at least mostly concious up to the point where I was on the operating table.” 

“So no idea at all?” 

“Enough to tell you that you don’t really want to know.” 

His next shot smacks the backboard and drops in. Fred hands her the rebound, but Toni doesn’t shoot right away. Just holds it. 

“What if I did?” 

Fred says nothing for a moment. Then he speaks. 

“You’re cold. That’s all I can tell you. Freezing cold. That might have been blood loss, I don’t know.” Fred takes the ball from her, sends it back up and grabs the rebound. “I’m not a doctor.” 

“Did you see a light?” 

“I dreamed. But I don’t remember them now. The first thing I saw when I woke up was my son’s face, and I just felt relieved. And happy. And-” He shrugs, as though it’s simple. “That’s it.” 

“That’s a lot more uplifting than I was expecting.” Toni lets him hand her the ball this time, and takes a successful shot. “You felt happy to be alive.” 

“Yeah. I can say that for near-death experiences, it’s true. It makes you happy to be alive.” 

“Some of my friends are tired of life already. Or at least they say that.” Toni throws the ball a little too hard, and it smacks off the top of the backboard. “I think we were all excited for a fresh start. But sometimes it just feels like it’s not getting better. What I want to know is-” She turns to him. “Is high school this shitty for everyone, or is it just me?"

“It’s not just you.” Fred dribbles the ball. You’ve probably already heard people tell you that these are the best years of your life, and trust me, that’s not true. Don’t get me wrong, they can be great - I loved high school - but don’t feel bad if there’s still room to go up. Because things do go up.” He shoots as if to prove it, and the ball soars in. “Promise.” 

“What were the best years of your life?” 

Fred catches the rebound. “Probably the last sixteen. When I had Archie.” 

Toni hadn’t expected that answer. “FP says high school was the best time of his life.” 

“FP was a popular kid.” Fred’s voice is carefully neutral. “Football team, lots of friends. Keg stand king. I’m sure he has a lot to miss.” 

“Keg stand king,” repeats Toni, trying out the words and trying to fit them into the image of FP as she knows him. It proves almost impossible. She lines up her shot carefully and takes it. “I’ve always thought he was talking about something else when he says that. About the best years of his life.” 

“What do you mean, something else?” 

“Well, I always thought he was talking about…” Her voice trails off as she meets Fred’s eyes. “A person. Like someone he cared about a lot back then who’s not in his life anymore.” 

“Hm.” Fred spins the ball between his hands, squaring up his shot. 

“Like Jughead’s mom?” Toni tries, keeping her voice light. The pitch of her speech raises at the end like a question. Fred throws the ball and it swishes through the net. “Or you?” 

Fred catches the ball without looking at her. “How do you know about me and FP?”

“He drinks a lot. He talks a lot. It’s none of my business, but I think he’s still in love with you.”

“You’re right.” Fred tosses the basketball at her and she catches it. 

“I’m right?”

“No, you’re right that it’s none of your business.”

A smile curves onto Toni’s face. “I like you, Fred.” 

“I like you too.” She shoots and scores. Fred smiles. 

“That’s better.” 

Toni catches her rebound. “So if I can’t ask you about dying, and I can’t ask you about FP-”

“Both sensitive topics, I’m sure you understand -” 

“I do, but- what are we going to talk about?” 

Fred laughs at that. “How about you? What’s new in your life?” 

“Oh.” Toni dribbles the ball cautiously, uncertain of her control. “I’m taking some new classes, I guess. Digital Media, and -” The thought of relaying her class schedule to Fred suddenly seems exhausting, and she switches topics, blurting out the sentence before she can stop herself. “I have feelings for a girl, and she doesn’t feel the same way about me.” 

“Ah.” Fred barely even blinks. “At Riverdale? What’s she like?” 

“She’s a cheerleader.” Toni tries to spin the ball between her hands like Fred does. It catches in her palms and sticks. “Did you ever date a cheerleader?” 

“I sure did.”

“How was it?” asks Toni, passing him the ball. Fred thinks about it before answering. 

“Tumultuous. But lovely.” 

“Any advice?” 

“You bet.” Fred dribbles the ball enthusiastically. “Try out for the basketball team. She’ll come to games, and then you’ll eventually have to speak. It’ll thrust you two together.” 

“It’s that simple?” 

“It might sound outdated, but that’s the formula, isn’t it? Athlete and cheerleader. It worked for me.” 

“You were the athlete?” 

Fred smiles. “I was the cheerleader.” 

“You’re full of surprises.” 

“Think about it.” 

Toni tries to hide her grin. “If you’ll keep teaching me.”

“Deal.” Fred sticks out his hand, and Toni shifts the ball to her hip so she can shake on it. 

“All right, enough goofing around.” Fred steps back, waiting for her to take her place on the line. “You’ve got three more shots, and then I have to go inside and start dinner.” 

Something in her face must give her away, because he quickly backtracks. “Unless you want to stay,” Fred adds hurriedly. “It’s spaghetti.” 

Toni smiles. “I don’t want to impose.” 

“How about tomorrow? We’re having pizza. We can celebrate you surviving your new school.”

“I’ll think about it.” Toni squares up for a shot, lifting her elbow and straightening her spine. The ball hits the backboard triumphantly and tumbles neatly through the hoop. 

“All net on this one,” Fred orders, catching her rebound and sending it back to her. 

“I don’t know.” Toni eyes the net nervously. She focuses hard on the back of the hoop. Bending her legs, she pushes herself upward and releases the ball at the top of her arc. It soars, pings off the rim, and swishes. 

“Pretty close!” Fred cheers, chasing it down onto the grass. “Last one. But you can come by after school tomorrow if you want to.” 

Toni smiles. She throws the basketball, and watches as it leaves her hands. It feels good somehow, coming off her fingers. It feels right. Sure enough, the ball drops through the hoop and down to the pavement without making a sound. 

“There you go,” says Fred, glowing with pride. “If I saw a shot like that at tryouts, I’d put you on the team in a heartbeat.” 

“You’re just saying that,” teases Toni, scooping up her bookbag. She throws the ball clumsily to Fred with one hand, and it bounces. 

“Come by tomorrow,” says Fred. “Only if you want. We’ll work on that defense.” 

Toni’s already looking forward to it. “I think I will,” she says casually, flicking her hair out of the collar of her shirt. “I think I will.” 


End file.
